All information on Reading's best Rowing Event.

Regatta Information

Rowers are invited to come to Reading Amateur Regatta and compete in Reading’s best rowing event on the river Thames.
Separate events are held on Saturday (over 1500 metres) & Sunday (over 1000 metres). On both days, there will be a buoyed 2 lane course, providing a real testing ground for all crews: every race must be won to reach the final!

The Reading Amateur Regatta will be held on the 3rd weekend in June (Saturday 16th and
Sunday 17th) which is 1 week before Henley Womens Regatta (HWR) and 3 weeks before Henley Royal Regatta (HRR).

The regatta is a great weekend out for rowers, family, friends and the general public who can come along and watch the racing for free.
The Thames promenade allows you to walk the complete length of the course giving excellent race viewing opportunities.
Race commentary will be provided during the day. Refreshments can be purchased in the marquee throughout the day.

The regatta provides crews with an excellent opportunity to gain experience in the skills and high demands of one-to-one racing.
In order to get to the final crews will have to win every heat in an event.
All winners will be presented with medals. On Saturday, many of the events are also associated with trophies.

Reading Amateur Regatta has a long history
(first established in 1842) and is now recognised as a major river regatta leading up to Henley Royal Regatta.
As such, results achieved by crews at Reading Amateur Regatta contribute to Henley qualifying status.
In addition, with the regatta being held in the immediate run-up before Henley Women’s Regatta, top international women’s crews use Reading Amateur Regatta as one of their final warm-up events.

Reading Amateur Regatta will be held under the rules of British Rowing and the British Rowing Rules of Racing
will apply. Further the regatta conforms to the 'RowSafe' guide. The draw will be published on the Tuesday in advance of the regatta and results will published live on this website!

The popularity of the regatta is such that the regatta has a full racing program from approximately 9.00am until 7.00pm on
both Saturday and Sunday!

Reading Amateur Regatta is changing in 2018

British Rowing’s new competition framework means the loss of status titles such as ’Elite’, ’Senior’, ’Intermediate’ and ’Novice’. Events will be split into bands using the crew’s Ranking Index, a measure based on races won (rather than events won) plus for the first time, the success in processional races (for a full explanation of the new system, please refer to the British Rowing Website.) It is anticipated that this will bring closely matched crews together to ensure close and fair racing.

At Reading the trophies. for the Saturday racing have been reallocated to the top band for each event, covering a much wider range of events.

While Saturday’s events will still take place over the ’championship’ 1500 m course, the Sunday start will be moved 100 m downstream to give a new 1000 m course, half the Olympic distance, which should also promote closer racing.

The ’Mini Regatta’ will now be incorporated into the main Sunday regatta. The original concept of the mini regatta had been to give those crews on the Project Oarsome programme an opportunity to race given there were not many regattas offering such events. Over time the number of regattas offering these events has increased substantially, reducing the demand, plus the removal of the definition of ’Maiden’ from the British Rules of Racing made it more difficult to select the target crews.

The Regatta committee hopes these changes will add to the enjoyment of the regatta.

Location & Parking

The Reading Amateur Regatta is held on the river Thames, along the Thames promenade, next to Caversham Bridge in Reading.

ACCESS TO THE REGATTA SITE HAS CHANGED FROM PREVIOUS YEARS : The access route is from Thames Side Promenade through the car park behind Reading Rowing Club. Vehicles towing boat trailers or carrying sculling boats will be directed to a designated boat parking area.

NO ACCESS TO ANY VEHICLE WILL BE GRANTED THROUGH RIVERMEAD LESIURE COMPLEX. THERE ARE HEIGHT BARRIERS AND TOLL CAMERA'S IN THIS CAR PARK

The site will be accessible for trailer parking from the Friday morning when arranged through the Site Manager in advance (tel. 07784 570271, e-mail: site@reading-amateur-regatta.org). The site will be open from 0500 on Saturday and Sunday mornings and close 2 hours after the last scheduled race of the day.

Trailers may be left overnight; however, this will be at the owner's risk. Trailers may be left on site until Monday morning; this must be arranged via the Site Manager in advance.

Parking will be charged at £2 per vehicle.

Post code for Sat Nav: RG1 8DR

Any site access issues should be reported to the Site Manager immediately.